Hair Club: A Lifeline For the Balding Man

By

Sarah E. Needleman

July 21, 2011

Sy Sperling
is more than just the founder and former president of Hair Club, the hair-loss treatment company celebrating its 35th anniversary this year. "I'm also a client," he says, just as he did decades ago on camera for TV commercials that made the business a household name. Today, Mr. Sperling holds another title— retiree, as he sold the brand he built from the ground up in 2000 to a private-equity firm for $45 million, which sold it in 2005 to publicly traded
Regis
Corp.
for $210 million. But the 70-year-old will be making an appearance this fall—sporting a chestnut brown coif—at Hair Club's New York City birthplace for an event commemorating the company's anniversary. Edited interview excerpts with Mr. Sperling following:

ENLARGE

Sy Sperling
Courtesy of Hair Club

WSJ: You opened your first hair-restoration salon in 1969. What experience did you have as an entrepreneur?

Mr. Sperling: I had no experience at all. I got in the business because of my own personal needs. I had thinning hair and it affected my self esteem. I tried [a natural hair-restoration process called weaving] because I didn't want to do a toupee. If you're dating and going to be having special moments, how do you explain, I got to take my hair off now? Weaving was a non-surgical alternative. You were able to go to sleep, wake up and style your hair. It worked very well for me. The results were so positive and so life-changing that I knew I could sell [weaving] to other men who had thinning hair.

WSJ: How did you come up with start-up capital?

Mr. Sperling: I borrowed everything on my credit card, about $10,000. I bought a salon that had gone out of business. The chairs were already there.

WSJ: You relaunched the business as Hair Club for Men in 1976. What led up to that decision?

Mr. Sperling:
Ron Blomberg
of the New York Yankees became my first celebrity endorsement. I offered him $5,000 for one year of testimonials. I thought he'd laugh at it but he said OK. I couldn't believe it. I hired a PR firm and told them to promote the heck out of him coming to get his hair done. I got massive coverage. It was an epiphany for my business. At the time, I was just making a living, that's it. I decided to take the business to another level. I went from a small location in Manhattan to a place around five times [larger]. It was growth, growth, growth from there on in.

WSJ: Indeed, by the 1990s, about 85 Hair Club salons were in operation throughout the country, half of which were franchises. So how did you go about expanding?

Mr. Sperling: I did my own commercial. I didn't have the resources [of] a large company so I always had to keep the budget in mind. We didn't use 35 mm film, it was a video commercial. The phones went off the hook. It was very memorable. Even to this day people stop me in the street. People perceive me as the guy next door. My speech is imperfect. My whole TV success had to do with the fact that it was believable and that I was able to afford good TV time by going on late at night.

WSJ: What's a lesson you learned while building your business?

ENLARGE

Mr. Sperling appeared in Hair Club commercials that aired during the 1980s on late-night TV. They showed what he looked like before and after his hair was treated.
Courtesy of Hair Club

Mr. Sperling: I could've been more selective when I sold franchises because I was selling to clients. Most of them succeeded but there were quite a few that didn't because they probably didn't have enough business experience. They were enthusiastic and had the ability to sell but getting good managers would've been better. When you choose franchisees, you're getting married to them in many respects and because the way franchise law works in the U.S., if you make a bad choice and you want to disenfranchise them down the road, it's very costly.

WSJ: You sold the business, now known as just Hair Club, in 2000. How come?

Mr. Sperling: It was time to smell the roses. I was made a very good offer, enough money to be financially secure for the rest of my life. I'm not a billionaire but I'm extremely comfortable financially. I'm enjoying life more than ever.

WSJ: How's retirement? Do you miss entrepreneurship?

Mr. Sperling: I do miss it very much. Once you're an entrepreneur, that's always with you. When I walk down the street and look at stores, I say to myself, they don't have right signage or I'd do this differently. I always think about what I'd do.

Corrections & Amplifications Ron Blomberg of the New York Yankees was the first celebrity endorsement for Hair Club in 1976. An earlier version of this article misspelled his last name.

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